07-10-2015, 04:25 PM | #11 | ||
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08-10-2015, 07:58 AM | #12 |
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a leisure battery would be under £100 and the solar trickle charger a lot less with shopping around I know Halfords used to do them and you can buy them on line, the converter wouldn't be much so I suppose you could do it that way for a few hundred if not less. I'd say a caravan place would be the best to ask about connecting the battery to a plug socket, but once done should last for years and you could always charge the battery conventionally every so often and of course it could be used without having mains electricity outside. We made a simple solar heater for our 'easy up' swimming pool it consisted of a coiled black hosepipe mounted onto a piece of board and covered with Perspex or glass, the sun would heat up the water running through the hose which came from the pool and it was hot when it went back into the pool after going around the pipe. I think they now sell something very similar, the more hose the better but it only really worked on a sunny day, the ones you can buy have a proper solar panel which should work in daylight although not as well as a sunny day.
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08-10-2015, 12:19 PM | #13 |
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that's a good idea too isn't it. I have solar lights in the conservatory and they do come on year round but different length of time dependent on the (strength of?) sunshine or light so it must be doable. I will take closer look at Vikki's hyperlink and see what's going on re batteries too. im sure those solar panels on roofs only have copper piping at the back of them with water passing through, charge into electricity....simples ! CB
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08-10-2015, 09:12 PM | #14 |
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This page on Wikipedia says that there are a couple of types of solar cells. One of them turns the light directly into electricity- photovolatic cells - the efficiency of those was low but has improved greatly. The other sort heats water inside the cell and the hot water generates the electricity from there.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_cell Possibly the most efficient use of solar heating is to not use electricity at all, and to use the sun to heat up something (water, pellets of glass or metal) and the heat is retained by the substance and is released over hours when the sun has gone down. I suspect that kind of thing isn't a lot of use in the winter in the UK but can be great in summer.
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10-10-2015, 04:09 PM | #15 |
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Do you remember that film - The time machine I think - I remember the original., travelled back in time meeting some funny little cave dweller types...well do you think it may be easier to build one of those? Thanks Jonathan, I will try and digest the possibilities. I think it would be interesting if there was a sort of easy mobile design to create just a glow to take the edge of a cold evening. its was 3.3 here the other night.
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